Jesus. Twenty-four? Why couldn’t it have been one? Nice and simple.
“What do we do with them?” I asked.
“They need to be replaced in the room where the original ones were. There should be a schematic in the school’s secret files. Toland will know where to look. The important part is to get the stones back to the school. There’s a decent chance the original owner enchanted the room to arrange the stones in the correct order automatically once they’re brought into the space.”
“And the spells?” I asked.
“Worry about all that later,” Dru said sharply. “I’ll keep looking for information, but that’s all I have right now. You need to figure out a way to get your hands on those stones. Nothing else matters until you have them.”
“We’ll get them,” Kingston promised with a lazy wave of his hand. “There are rocks for the taking around here.”
“They aren’t just any old rocks.” The Custodian sounded like he wished he could step through the phone and shake Kingston.
“Don’t worry about him.” Xero took the phone, lifting it a little closer to his mouth. “I know what we’re looking for.”
“Good. Then hurry up. It’s getting crazy here on earth. Things are… well, we need all the backup we can get. Call me when you procure the stones.”
Dru hung up, and as soon as the line went dead, every eye turned to Xero.
“So? What are we looking at, Xero?” I asked, unconsciously fisting my hands as I braced for the answer.
He shook his head and ran a hand over his short hair. “I’ve heard of them. When I was in Gavriel’s army, I heard that name mentioned. The Temple Stones of the First Order. They’re incredibly powerful, which means they’re precious and well-guarded. At least, the ones above ground are.”
“You know where to find them in the raw though, right?” Jayce asked worriedly.
“Ehh—I know how to find clues on where to look. I worked in the mines for a while when I first came here. Gavriel likes to break his new recruits with hard labor and promises of food. Hit a little too close to home for me.”
Jayce winced. “I bet the cave we transported into isn’t one of those mines, is it? That would be too easy, I guess.”
Xero shook his head. “No trace of them anywhere I’ve seen. Besides, this is swamp land. The stones will be found in desert climates.”
Everybody wilted slightly. I had a feeling we all knew what the options were, and none of us liked any of them. I skipped ahead of the uncomfortable part, focusing on something relatively simple instead.
“How do we explain to Toland where the rocks came from or how we knew to get them?” I asked. “Assuming we do get them?”
“Let’s worry about that after we see whether or not we survive this.” Kai frowned, his dark eyes glittering.
“Survive—what, exactly?” Kingston kept his tone carefully neutral.
“We’re going rock collecting,” I said with a hard-edged grin.
“Uh, you know Toland won’t let us do that.” Jayce grimaced.
“Toland won’t get a chance to stop us,” I shot back. “We’re sneaking out and getting this done. He and the staff have had plenty of time to figure all of this out, and they haven’t managed to do it. I’m not about to roll over and die just because surviving means breaking a few stupid rules. Besides, you heard how Dru almost threatened to turn Kingston in for having a contraband phone. For all we know, Toland’s under another blood oath to automatically expel anyone who breaks a rule that big. We can’t risk telling him. So we sneak out and do this ourselves.”
My words had their intended effect, and everybody quickly came around. Kingston was on board with not telling Toland, but less enthusiastic about trying to find the stones ourselves. Kai wasn’t too happy about it, but he muttered something under his breath about not letting the rest of us idiots go it alone. Jayce quickly slipped into adventure mode, and Xero looked relieved. Finally, his previous stint in the underworld was going to be useful.
We sketched out a rough plan for how to get out of school grounds undetected, and then we rose from our seats in the cramped little room.
“You guys get supplies.” I cast my gaze over all of them, feeling a strange urge to stare until I’d memorized their features. As if some part of me knew we were heading to our doom. “I’m going to make sure we have a way to get back inside once we return.”
“You’re doing what?!”
Hannah
’s amber eyes widened in horror.
“We’re sneaking out to find the stones that will take us back home,” I repeated patiently. “Xero knows where to look. It’s our one shot at getting back to earth before the wards fail and Gavriel imprisons us all.”